| Tuesday 17 September 1991 |
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Mariah Carey: On a more personal note
As good as she is, Whitney Houston must tremble a little every time she hears Mariah Carey. Houston was the unchallenged queen of pop/soul music until Carey came along last year. A 20-year-old phenomenon with a timeless, octave-leaping voice, Carey stole part of Houston's crowd - and copped some valuable Grammy hardware as well, earning two awards for best new artist and best female pop performance.
Carey's self-titled debut album sold 7 million copies and ran off four consecutive No. 1 hits in "Vision of Love", "Love Takes Time", "Someday" and "I Don't Wanna Cry". To prove that was no fluke, Carey today releases the follow-up, "Emotions", which shows a quantum leap in maturity and confidence. Now a heady 21, the New York-born-and-bred Carey sounds so accomplished that this feels like her 10th album, rather than just her second.
Where the first album was overproduced - by Carey's own admission - this one is more tightly and subtly drawn. The focus is on Carey's soulful, gospel-steeped voice, not the wizardry of computer arrangements. Her influences are more apparent - Aretha Franklin, Minnie Riperton, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight - and there's a warm, personal touch not always felt before.
The first single, the title track "Emotions", was recently heard during an uncomfortable stage performance at the MTV Video Awards. Carey doesn't yet have the goods in concert - she still has no plans to book her first national tour - but she's an absolute pro Minnie Riperton-like falsetto that frames a feeling of pure joy that didn't come across on her MTV stint. "I'm in love/I'm alive/Intoxicated/Flying high/It feels like a dream," Carey sings of a newborn romance.
Elsewhere, she runs a gamut of emotions, as befitting the album's title. When you consider she writes all the lyrics, it's all the more remarkable. She's tearfully down-and-out in "Can't Let Go" ("do you know the way it feels when all you have just dies?"), then comes right back with the insistently funky, positive-thinking anthem, "Make It Happen", a clear slice of spiritual autobiography. Sings Carey: "I struggled and I prayed/And now I've found my way/If you believe in yourself enough/And know what you want/ You're gonna make it happen." The last verse is sung in glorious a cappella.
There are more ballads than before, furthering an adult-contemporary mood. Most of the ballads are unspeakably beautiful, even dipping into classic soul. "If It's Over", which Carey wrote with Carole King in one hour while the two sat at a piano, sounds out of a '60s Memphis Stax/Volt session, as if Otis Redding were coaching. Carey pleads with a boyfriend: "If it's over, let me go," as the drama builds.
Carey keeps her dance bases covered with several songs coproduced with David Cole and Robert Clivilles of the currently hot C & C Music Factory. But it's her wrenching ballads, plus a surprise, Barbra Streisand-like cabaret song in "The Wind", that suggest just how unlimited her talents are. (Boston Globe)
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